Oil in Art

Art is an important part of petroleum history.

Many kinds of media help preserve the heritage of an industry that shaped and defined modern civilization. This Oil in Art page is just the tip of an extensive history that deserves wider recognition. Artists have been important recorders and interpreters of petroleum’s influence in the United States and the world.

For AOGHS features of past and present “oil painters,” illustrators, cartoonists, see the articles below. An early historical society member, JoAnn Cowans of Fullerton, California, is an award-winning painter, as described in Petroleum & Oilfield Artists. Today, she is collaborating with Loyola Marymount University Department of Archives and Small Collections on a “Then & Now” urban archaeology project with a virtual our of Venice and Playa del Ray – and her 1960s paintings of the oilfields.

There are many examples of talented artists whose careers have related to the petroleum industry. Alexandre Hogue was part of the New Deal Federal Arts Program; he and other artists were commissioned to paint American history on the walls of public buildings during the Great Depression. He produced murals in Dallas, Houston – and a post office in Graham (see link to article below). Oilfield artists have been important recorders and interpreters of petroleum’s influence in the United States.

America celebrated the 100th birthday of its first commercial oil well.

The Depression era comic strip caveman Alley Oop began in the imagination of a cartoonist who drew Permian Basin oilfield maps. The West Texas oil town of Iraan today proclaims itself as Victor Hamlin’s inspiration. His idea for the comic strip, which in the 1930s ran in 800 newspapers, was inspired by working in the company town’s Yates oilfield, where he developed a life-long interest in geology and paleontology.

Pennsylvania artist Robert Foster won the competition for a centennial oil stamp commemorating the birth of America’s petroleum industry. The stamp was issued on August 27, 1959, by U.S. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, who proclaimed, “The American people have great reason to be indebted to this industry.” With 120 million stamps to follow the first day of issue, the stamp served “as a reminder of what can be achieved by the combination of free enterprise and the vision and courage and effort of dedicated men.”

Since 1955, a small, bronze Joe Roughneck bust is presented once a year as the petroleum industry’s Chief Roughneck Award, honoring someone “whose character represents the highest ideals of the industry.” Originally created by noted artist Torg Thompson – and presented to each Chief Roughneck recipient, Joe Roughneck began life in Lone Star Steel Company print advertising. The character became popular and was soon adopted by the industry at large, prompting Lone Star Steel to declare, “Joe doesn’t belong to us anymore. He’s as universal as a rotary rig.”

A winged neon reminder of the its oil heritage once soared above Dallas on the Magnolia Petroleum building. Today, the carefully refurbished red-winged oil patch icon continues to be a city attraction perched on a 22-foot derrick in front of the Omni Dallas Hotel. Mobil Oil Company’s trademark has been a feature of Dallas since first welcoming attendees to a 1934 petroleum convention. It remains among the most well recognizable corporate symbols in American history.

Depression-Era artist Alexandre Hogue’s “Oil Fields of Graham” was restored and displayed at the Old Post Office Museum & Art Center in 1993. One his 1937 paintings depicts a Pecos oilfield with storage tanks in the foreground and the quarters for workers in the background. Hogue’s popular “Dust Bowl” collection was featured in Life magazine.

Traveling from Pennsylvania to Texas at the turn of the century, Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler created town “aero views” or “bird’s eye views” – panoramic maps of many of America’s earliest petroleum communities. More than 400 Thaddeus Fowler panoramas have been identified. There are 324 in the Library of Congress, including petroleum towns like Oil City, Pennsylvania; Wichita Falls, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and many others.

Thirty years before the Grinch stole Christmas in 1957, Theodore Seuss Geisel’s critters could be seen in Standard Oil of New Jersey advertising campaigns. During the Great Depression, the future Dr. Seuss promoted Essolube and other products. His “Seuss Navy” Essomarine booth at the 1936 National Motorboat Show was phenomenally successful. Seuss later said his experience at Standard, “taught me conciseness and how to marry pictures with words.”

In June 1967, an entire wing of exhibits – the “Hall of Petroleum” – opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s American history museum on the national mall in Washington, D.C. Welcoming visitors was a “Panorama of Petroleum,” a 56-foot mural by Delbert Jackson of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Exhibits included cable-tool and rotary drilling rigs, pump jacks and other oilfield exhibits. For museum visitors, the mural served as a guide to the equipment contents of the museum’s petroleum exhibits.

In early 1993, Bob “Daddy-O” Wade created a 63-foot tall saxophone sculpture at Billy Blues Bar & Grill on Houston’s west side. His artwork included two 48-inch steel sections of petroleum pipeline to create what some call the largest (non-playable) saxophone in the world.